Stones River National Cemetery: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Stones River National Battlefield - Stones River National Cemetery, National Park Service

National Park Service

The 20.1-acre Stones River National Cemetery is located three miles west of the City of Murfreesboro, near where General Rosecrans massed his artillery on the first day of the Battle of Stones River (December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863). It is one of the highest points within the Tennessee's Stones River National Battlefield. The Stones River National Cemetery is significant for its association with the movement to establish, design, and administer a national system of cemeteries after the Civil War. The landscape incorporates the particular commemoration of individual soldiers and the site of the battle with a formal aesthetic and national standard for commemorative landscape design. The cemetery is also significant for funerary landscape architecture during that era, as the monuments, wall, and graves exhibit the style and layout characteristic to post-war national cemeteries. Like other nineteenth-century memorial cemeteries, the Stones River National Cemetery was designed with both military formality and as a quiet, contemplative setting. The site contains a central focal point, symmetrical sections of standard grave markers, a manicured lawn, and a limestone wall around its perimeter. The Stones River National Cemetery was first designed and managed by quartermaster John Means. The cemetery was used for the interment of Union soldiers who had been buried on the battlefield, and many of the gravesites remain unknown as a result of the exhumation process. During War Department administration (1863-1933), the cemetery continued to develop as a destination, commemorative site, and interpretive landscape associated with the surrounding Stones River National Battlefield. The cemetery was transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) in 1933. Further improvements were made to the facilities during a 1960s park development era, and the 1980s brought restorations in the form of replaced headstones and a new planting plan. Currently, the cemetery preserves its character-defining landscape features including monuments, spatial organization, vegetation, topography, and land use. Its battle-associations are strengthened by the preservation and interpretation of the surrounding battlefield landscape. Design and feeling remain evident in the burial sections and site design, and structures on the site convey the original material and workmanship of the historic period. The cemetery contains 6,886 interments. The cemetery is bordered by the CSX Railroad and the Old Nashville Pike. A paved entrance drive leads from the southernmost gate to Lincoln Square in the center of the cemetery, an area containing a flagstaff, two standing cannons, and a cannonball pyramid. Grave markers radiate from the square in concentric sections, and diagonal grassed paths divide the cemetery into sections. Placed among the graves are two unique monuments: the 15-foot U.S. Regulars Monument, and the 43rd and 180th Ohio Monument. A reconstructed brick rostrum was added in 2006, the original having been removed in 1941-42. The northwestern third of the cemetery lot is reserved for residential and utility functions, and constuction of these buildings dates to the 1960s. This area is delineated by a fence, the cemetery wall, and cedar trees. Various species of evergreen and deciduous trees, both young and mature, are distributed along the avenues. It is possible that several of the large specimens date to the period of the cemetery's original layout. Overall, the Stones River National Cemetery continues to exhibit its associations with the Civil War Battle of Stones River, and it serves as a representation of the features and designs of the post-war commemorative period.

Stones River National Cemetery: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Stones River National Battlefield - Stones River National Cemetery, National Park Service

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